Bushwalk Australia

I've had to replace some 15 year old Lands Department topo maps recently and have been really disappointed with the new series NSW topo maps. Very flimsy and they tear on the folds after a couple of days being used in the bush. Sure they now have a glossy satelite photo of the map on the back (not that useful IMO) but I really wish they had thought about durability and not gone to lightweight glossy paper.

I've emailed the NSW Lands Dept with my 'feedback' but I am getting prepared for a stock standard lame response.

Anyway does anyone know of a good type of flexible, thinish tape to repair those awkward fold tears on maps with?

Couldn't agree more. they are crap. don't last 5 mins in the field. end up like paper mash if they get damp. hopeless.

K

Yep I agree- have now taken to photocopying & laminating relevant bits & keeping whole map protected... works well if you don't need to see the whole lot at once.
Cheers
Lizzy

My old maps largely survived being flooded. They have a few coloured spots, but still quite usable. The maps I had that were printed on glossy paper (eg, some NSW national park maps) all stuck together and were unusable.

I like the air photo on the back - its good for pagoda country and looking for canyons. However I would rather have better paper. In the USA I got some maps of the Sierra Nevada Mts that were printed on plastic type paper. They may have been a little bit heaver - but they were very robust.

Dave

I agree that the quality of the paper is rubbish. I went out and bought a few copies of my favourite maps when they got remaindered.

I bought some of the new maps pre-laminated from Melbourne Map Centre. They have certainly lasted a lot better than the unlaminated ones, though the laminating does have its limits. They don't do submersion, for example, if you take them canyoning! It's also hard to write on them, but then it was hard to write on the new maps anyway.

http://www.melbmap.com.au/cgi-bin/site/ ... =3603&Sno=

I'm sure there are other places doing pre-laminated maps too.

Tom

I agree. I stick mine together with 1" (approx) masking tape. (I currently use 3M Scotch brand but I think any will do.)
It hasn't failed yet. I keep adding tape as necessary.
And where are those good old 1:100,000 maps?

Like everyone else I long for better quality paper, much stronger along the folds and more water resistant. Recently I bought a couple of small bottles of Aquaseal map seal. I've yet to try it out but plan to give it a go on the more frequently used maps. To fix the tears I just use whatever sticky tape is lying around, but try to deal with them ASAP, before they get too large, and I reinforce both sides. I often take a very small roll for field repairs. You should see my Katoomba topo, which is more tape than map. I bought a new one but still use the old one to see how long it will hang together.

And here is the answer from the Lands Dept - tells you what happened to the old paper stock....



'As with all things over time changes are made to construction of the way they are made, unfortunately this also happens in the paper manufacturing industry.

The stock used 20 years ago was purchased from a company in France which closed their doors over ten years ago due to the cost of manufacturing this stock. Due to the cost involved no other paper manufacturer or paper merchant picked this stock up.

Over the years we have tested numerous stocks in an attempt to provide a product as close to the old topographical maps as possible. Currently we have available only one paper merchant who provides a quality stock we require to produce the satellite image on the reverse side of the topographical map.

With the design of the topographical maps the amount of folds required cannot be minimised as you would appreciate. We will look into this situation further liaising if possible sourcing an alternative stock.'

I bought a whole bunchload of clear contact from officeworks and sat down to contact my entire map collection last year. both sides of the map.
If you leave 1cm at the edges, both the opposite sides of the contact stick together and form quite a good seal. then i trim it down abit.

Think it took me like 2 full days to do my entire map , with a bit of procrastinating here and there. My maps have certainly been more resistant to folds, tears, water and generally handling. Ive noticed with commonly used maps like my Katoomba one, its held up very well.

after a trip, you can just wipe all the dirt off with sponge and nearly as good as new. not as good as hard lamination but it is much cheaper, especially if you buy the clear contact in bulk.

One of the things that turned me off Contact years ago is that over time it used to shrink, puckering paper and leaving a sticky border around anything it was stuck to. Proper laminating does not suffer from this problem.

Is the current Contact any better in this respect?

contact is great but adds to the bulk of the maps... and if you do fold them sometimes creases can occur and distort important info.

i have the maps on CD but they arent all the latest editions. for short or knowingly treacherous trips, i print and laminate individual pages and leave my big maps either at home or safely in my bag.

I see that at least one person has thought of coating with mapseal. I'm thinking that the job could also be done with some sort of acrylic clear coating which would bind the paper fibres together and seal the inks. Should strengthen the folds a little too. Have a look at some of the yachting decking finishes. Might be worth experimenting on some maps perhaps.

LAMEA-Gals wrote:[SNIP] Anyway does anyone know of a good type of flexible, thinish tape to repair those awkward fold tears on maps with?

I always use the genuine "Scotch" Magic Tape, which according to a librarian friend many years ago, has an archival quality adhesive that is supposed to never go brittle or yellow like many of the cheaper glossy tapes do.

Likewise Tas-man. That's the best quality tape. At about $5 a roll (12 mm is best for varieties of use), it's too dear to use for everything, so keep cheap tape as well, for other jobs.
But as the cost of colour copying has come right down ( Xerox in Lonnie had best Tassie prices, but that was a while back), that's the way to go for taking maps into the field.
Officeworks offers very cheap colour copying (60/70c for A3), or try TAFE libraries too. Not all machines offer the same quality so once you've found the one you like, that's the one you stick with. Scanning, at least last I saw, doesn't offer the same sharpness.
In this way, if laminating's too dear, just pop them in a snaplock bag. They're expendable while the original is safe.